IPT Book Reviews

Title: Smiling Through Tears
Authors: Pamela Freyd and Eleanor Goldstein
Publisher: Upton Books, ©1997

Upton Books
SIRS, Inc.
P.O. Box 2348
Boca Raton, FL 33427-2348
(800) 232-7477
$14.95 (p)

This 141-page book about the recovered memory/false memory controversy incorporates over 100 cartoons into the discussion of the debate. Pamela Freyd is the Executive Director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and the book is written from this perspective. In a lively style, the major areas in the controversy are covered, including the science of memory, the survivor movement, hypnosis, multiple personality disorder, new age psychology, satanic ritual abuse, the recovery movement, and lawsuits. Although the text is brief, the material is documented by footnotes to the relevant literature. The book ends with a list of recommended readings and an index.

In the introduction, the authors explain the concept behind building the book around cartoons: "Cartoonists have captured some of the major ideas behind the movements that created the milieu in which false memories thrive. With a few strokes of the pen and a few words, they have cut to the heart of the matter. They make us smile even in the fact of great tragedy." The result is a book which is both understandable and highly entertaining.

Reviewed by Hollida Wakefield, Institute for Psychological Therapies, Northfield, Minnesota.

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